Böcker av Scott Meze

Rock's golden age happened to correspond with the golden age of vinyl. The second of a series that explores this music year by year, this book documents the albums you should hear and own from 1968. It includes more than 400 recommendations, 55 of which are featured as essential. A LAVISH GUIDE TO THE ALBUMS THAT MATTER The greatest albums from the greatest period in the history of popular music were disseminated on 12-inch circles of pressed black plastic. There were other formats but none that competed for dominance, and the whole point of rock was to separate an album culture from singles-based pop. The fact that rock artists found other ways to fill those 12-inch circles than simply collections of three minute songs, in defiance of the economics, the commercial pressures, the disapproval of their labels, and radio playlists, is the joy of the age. Individual singles from the period exist in undifferentiated globs to be plucked out of history at random and discarded just as quickly. It is the albums of that period, albums half a century old, that last and will continue to last as long as there are people with ears to enjoy them. This series of books documents the golden age year by year, revealing how a succession of remarkable developments took place over a very short period of time. The golden age of rock was gone in a flash, but within its brief lifespan every year was different, and it left us every form of music that followed. In each volume, Scott Meze discusses the overall changes in rock - what was happening and why - and lists the albums that you should hear and preferably own in whatever format is most convenient to you. 1969 Though what seemed to be the most profound events of the year took place in America, 1969 is actually the year rock's focus shifted back to the old continent. While America made itself irrelevant, British and West German bands in particular began a revolution every bit as wide-reaching as the Beatles' almost a decade before, and far more significant. The year saw debut albums from Amon Düül II, Audience, the Can, Caravan, Colosseum, East Of Eden, Genesis, Humble Pie, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Man, Le Orme, Renaissance, Strawbs, Tasavallan Presidentti, Van Der Graaf Generator, and Yes, among many others. Pink Floyd released its first album without any Syd Barrett involvement, and completed its reinvention as a fully immersive college-based band. This year Jethro Tull released Stand Up, its first with Ian Anderson as leader, and alongside Led Zeppelin the first to break the new music in the States. And the Who released Tommy, described as an "opera" on its sleeve. In 1969 Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, and Al Stewart redefined what modern folk music could mean, while Shirley & Dolly Collins linked it to the early music revival. This year Deep Purple, the Nice, Pink Floyd, and Procol Harum scrambled to plant flags in the establishment by performing with an orchestra. And this year the Rolling Stones returned to the U.S. for the first time since July 1966. It was the spearhead of the new British invasion, and it needed to clear the floor for all these others. This it achieved with brutal facility at Altamont. The band that had done most to send a blast of sonic oxygen into the disaffected youth of America was now instrumental in sucking all the air out of their room. Special features include: An introduction that places the year in contextAn exploration of how the rock infrastructure developed in 1969A look at the significant singles of the yearSeparate in-depth sections on movements in 1969 in psychedelia and psychedelic rock, prog rock, folk and roots music, blues, blues rock and heavy metal, soul, jazz, British and European music, and all kinds of fringeTwo full pages on every featured album

Rock's golden age happened to correspond with the golden age of vinyl. The first of a series that explores this music year by year, this book documents the albums you should hear and own from 1968. It includes more than 200 recommendations, 46 of which are featured as essential. A LAVISH GUIDE TO THE ALBUMS THAT MATTER The greatest albums from the greatest period in the history of popular music were disseminated on 12-inch circles of pressed black plastic. There were other formats but none that competed for dominance, and the whole point of rock was to separate an album culture from singles-based pop. The fact that rock artists found other ways to fill those 12-inch circles than simply collections of three minute songs, in defiance of the economics, the commercial pressures, the disapproval of their labels, and radio playlists, is the joy of the age. Individual singles from the period exist in undifferentiated globs to be plucked out of history at random and discarded just as quickly. It is the albums of that period, albums half a century old, that last and will continue to last as long as there are people with ears to enjoy them. This series of books documents the golden age year by year, revealing how a succession of remarkable developments took place over a very short period of time. The golden age of rock was gone in a flash, but within its brief lifespan every year was different, and it left us every form of music that followed. In each volume, Scott Meze discusses the overall changes in rock - what was happening and why - and lists the albums that you should hear and preferably own in whatever format is most convenient to you. 1968 This was the pivotal year for rock, the year everything changed. The band that had led the ascent on culture's pinnacles, infusing into its sound folk, classical, world music, even free jazz, and rendering all these other musics obsolete, had now abdicated its position at the head of the assault. Where the Beatles had once confidently signposted the future, other artists and bands stepped in, each pointing in a different direction. By the end of 1968 the cultural appropriation was complete. Rock bands were playing with orchestras and recording elaborate multi-part suites. Much of this music rejected tension and release for the sensation of the moment. Folk artists had either all electrified or were incorporating rock and jazz rhythms into their work. Jazz itself either compromised its standards or raised its game to attract a rock-fixated college audience. In all cases, rock was the winner, and every other form of music accommodated itself to rock to survive. Special features include: An introduction that places the year in contextAn exploration of how the rock infrastructure developed in 1968, including changes in recording technology, concert venues, sound and staging, touring, festivals, management styles, record labels, radio and other media, rock journalism, the business of promoting and investing in performers, and drugsA look at the significant singles of the yearThe rise of the album as a physical object of worth, including gatefold sleeves, cover gimmicks, double and triple albums, thematic and narrative concept albums, long songs and side-length suites, the creation of the album as a guided journey that you played from start to finish, quadraphonic, and the acceptability of swearingSeparate in-depth sections on movements in 1968 in psychedelia and psychedelic rock, prog rock, folk and roots music, blues, blues rock and heavy metal, soul, jazz, electronic music, and all kinds of fringe music from David Axelrod to Captain BeefheartTwo full pages on every featured album, including a graphic representation of the vinyl surface

Few artists have had as great an impact with their debut single as Procol Harum. Mesmerising and perplexing in equal measure, 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' remains the perfect distillation of the possibilities of psychedelia in that brief period when British pop seemed to promise a summer of love that would last forever.

In this definitive deep dive into Ummagumma, Scott Meze reveals a band and an industry poised on the edge of the prog rock that will change everything. It shows how the album was fundamental to developments inside Pink Floyd, and had an inestimable influence beyond it. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO PINK FLOYD'S FORGOTTEN DEFINING CLASSICUmmagumma is the most polarizing album in Pink Floyd's career, and the most radical platinum-selling LP ever released. In 1969 it was sanctioned by a major popular music company, EMI, best known for the Beatles, and recorded right there at Abbey Road. It was marketed successfully as pop. People bought it, played it, and enjoyed it. Today the album has fewer friends, proportionally speaking, than it did at the time of its release. Its sales performance has been fueled by legions of completists. They buy it because it's a Pink Floyd album, even if they rarely actually put it on. Ask these fans as a mass to rank the band's works from best to worst and it's somewhere right down there at the bottom. You'll get as little respect from the remaining band members, who dismiss the live disk as substandard and the studio disk as the dregs of their collective output. Nothing on that studio disk was still played live six months after the album's release, and none of the members has ever played any of it live since. Ummagumma isn't comfortable in the rock marketplace, you won't find any classical listeners defending it, and it's shunned by the fringe. Where it doesn't fit into the narrative commentators want to tell it is mentioned grudgingly and always as a failure with lessons to learn. Where it does it is only as a first attempt at themes and structures that will be refined and perfected later. Yet Ummagumma is more separate, more experimental, and more adventurous than any other mainstream album. It flung open the doors for the abstractions of the West German, electronica, noise, and other scenes. It formulated the multi-part classic rock suites, guitar techniques, and sound spaces that would carry Pink Floyd to domination of a genre built solely for itself. Its live disk is the best ever document of underground British psychedelia in its shift from 1967's acid eruption to 1970's cannabis trance. Its studio disk displays a depth of creativity that both beds it into the prog rock experiments of 1969 and sets it apart from the currents of its year. As music, as a package, as an idea, as an execution, as a consequence, Ummagumma was central to everything that followed. In Something Else, Scott Meze celebrates an overlooked album and offers a chance to explore again exactly what is on those troublesome four sides of vinyl. More widely, he places Ummagumma not into the standard Pink Floyd narrative but into the narrative of its age and of its year, when British bands in particular were stretching out their hands to push at the limits of the business they were in. No other pop group ever traveled as far as Pink Floyd did from 1965 to 1969, let alone in so short a time.None pushed so far, or tried to rupture that business so decisively. Like stepping back one more frame from its cover image, Something Else reveals a whole new Ummagumma, one that is more curious and exciting than you remember. One that may well be the greatest album ever made -- and is surely the most singular.

Soft Machine are perceived as cold and forbidding. At their peak in the 1970s, they purposefully raised the hackles of pop journalists, the musical establishment, and even their own fans. Their music was designed to exclude all but the most devoted. Their line-up constantly churned, divesting themselves of every player that tried to make a human connection. Instead of the community of live performance, they favoured an abusive blast of ferocious noise that never ceased from the first note to the point you were driven out of the venue in shock. That all this was true only for a short period of their career and is certainly not the case for more recent incarnations is irrelevant if potential listeners are turned away before they've even dared to hear a note of their music. Do so, and an entirely different band emerges: one that is sly, spry, tuneful, trippy, and surprisingly welcoming, merging a glorious melange of prog rock, jazz fusion, and much more and capable of shifting on a unison beat from soul ballad to freeform skronk, from fuzz-driven pounding to aching minimalism. This book guides you through the maze of the band's works, revealing why every album is worthy of re-evaluation, why they're so influential, and why you should rush to assimilate as many of them as you can. It covers the live and studio material released by the parent group, all related projects with a 'Soft' in their name, and the essential extracurricular activities of every member from 1960 to the present day.

Of all the British bands that blasted to fame in rock's golden age, Nektar remain the most mysterious and least documented. Because they chose to base themselves in West Germany, until now commentators in their native land have tended to overlook them. They're all but excluded from prog's official narrative even though Remember The Future is a classic of the genre and one of very few European art rock albums to conquer the US. This book reveals Nektar as much more than just a hit LP, celebrating a catalogue rich in works of equal stature which, uniquely for the time, poured so effortlessly from the players. Whether you know only the clutch of 1970s albums that are Nektar at the pinnacle, or you've followed their progress under leaders Roye Albrighton and now Derek Moore, here's everything you need to complete your understanding of an agile, continuously intriguing and as distinctive as their covers, as dazzling as their light show, and as warm as their fans. It documents how Germany was both boon and bane for the band, how America tore them apart and pulled them back together, and how from Journey To The Centre Of The Eye to The Other Side Nektar have a vision and a connection that brings them much closer to our small scared lives than any other band of their stature.